Just a reminder that both Fortune and Forbes is now almost entirely made up of sponsored articles that often don't mention who the sponsor is even if the sponsor is a foreign government. The most blatant example of this is the Pakistani government sponsoring an article in Forbes calling Pakistan the best place for solo female travelers.
I came here to say what you've mentioned... there's a big interest in the Russian government to spread this fearmonger narrative (including, of course, Gazprom who has released an absurd Ad[0] few weeks ago, claiming "the winter is coming").
Here's the thing: people know things aren't going to be like they were one year ago. In fact a lot of people have been proactively taking measures, both consumers and governments.
We also know things aren't going to be GREAT!
But this type of shit - sorry for the coarseness, but I do fit these articles into the "shit bucket" - doesn't seem to serve any purpose, or add any new development or insight.
It just seems to try to increase the frequency of the Russian narrative.
What Forbes seems to miss, apparently, is that this was a deliberate choice with the support of Europeans. This is the price we're willing to pay to help to sink down an aggressive state and warmonger. Or at least, not help it flourish.
Keep being in denial - this winter will be a freezing cold one for the EU, that's pretty much a given if you look at the energy price developments as we speak.
I don't see you refute the numbers, you're just attacking the messenger.
> This is the price we are willing to pay
Oh interesting. Yea you're sure the majority of your people are willing to starve and freeze for the sake of corrupt politics and a pseudo-moralistic cause? Have you asked them?
Perhaps speak for yourself only. And good luck to you and your family doing your part in reducing gas demand if you're so "willing".
> This was a deliberate choice with the support of Europeans. This is the price *we're* willing to pay
You really shouldn't speak on behalf of other people. I don't remember anyone being asked for their opinion or given a choice on this matter.
I'm sure people who work minimum wage jobs and are just trying to get by don't have the luxury to wage a questionable ideological and economic war, something you seem to take for granted.
For many people such a drastic increase in energy prices is the difference between barely getting by and choosing which days to go hungry.
You can tell whether a Forbes article is reputable by looking under the name of the author. If it says "Forbes Staff", the article was reviewed by an editor. If it says "Contributor" (or "Senior Contributor"), the article was most likely not reviewed by an editor and the author is basically a blogger.
Which doesn't necessarily mean that the "official" (staff) articles are necessarily much better than the blogspam. Once they decided to throw their brand out of the window by letting (and encouraging) random bloggers publish their clickbait under their name, there wasn't much incentive to have their own articles be of better quality, and it shows.
its never an option between one or the other... there are carrion making a profit/political points from various different options. and sometimes its all of them.
Something is "self-evident" if it requires no external information to make a claim. (e.g. "All humans are entitled to equal protection under the law.") That isn't the case here. Rather, that the body of prior shared external knowledge is sufficient that a statement can be taken as a given without needing to justify it within the context of the conversation. (e.g. "Rain falls from the sky.") In this case, Pakistan being an unsafe place for women (second only to Afghanistan as the worst gender gap) is sufficiently well-documented that the statement doesn't require further litigation.
Yes it is self evident. And perhaps more importantly, generally assumed, so if you want to change people's mind, it up to you to provide evidence to the contrary.
> while importing more LNG means constructing dedicated terminals in Europe that can regasify liquid gas, a process which can take anywhere from two to five years.
It might have taken that long in normal times. In times of crises, it can be done in as little as half a year [1].
Expect more terminals to become operational in the coming (half) year.
Oh, yes. Millions of voters shivering in the dark, or the d*mn obvious prospect of that of looming over them, day-to-day for months on end, are an extremely powerful incentive for politicians, bureaucrats, NIMBY's, profiteering corporate exec., etc. to re-arrange their priorities.
I find it rather odd that this article twice claims that rising energy costs were due to worker unions.
Also, there's no mention anywhere of what production stops would cause for other countries. Can you imagine building a chip plant without ASML? No. That means they can force rather high prices worldwide.
They certainly are correct that it's going to be difficult, but taking about nuclear power plants who needed to shut down due to a hot summer? That seems like a strawman to me, because their cooling is going to be fine in winter.
It is so weird to buy things using my phone right now and get two notifications, one from Apple wallet showing the nominal amount (in EUR), and one from the Chase app showing the converted amount (USD) which is slightly less. I still cannot get used to this after visiting Europe so many times since the Euro came into effect. It feels like shopping with Monopoly money.
F.U.D. article. Flagged. Like somebody else here already noticed, fortune is not something to be trusted due to article sponsorship; I guess this one was commissioned by FSB&Co, because that's all they have nowadays, online fearmongering, since on war Ukraine is kicking their asses.
I guess we'll soon see exactly how right or wrong Trumps predictions were in 2018 that Germany was 'captive' to Russia back when the Germans were all laughing at him for those comments.
Germany under Merkel did not expect or advise an aggressive NATO expansion policy. Germany is also far from the only European country that bought Russian gas via Nordstream.
Ukraine should have given a non-NATO guarantee in January 2022. As we can see now, NATO is not required for defending Ukraine because it gets massive military help regardless.
Instead, Zelensky had his 15 minutes of fame in the Munich "peace" conference, talking about getting nuclear weapons.
I don't think Merkel foresaw that kind of stupid escalation. But the U.S. is secure as always.
> Ukraine should have given a non-NATO guarantee in January 2022
First, no, no nation should be forced to surrender it's sovereignty in such a manner.
Second, if they were in NATO, it would have been a deterrent and they wouldn't have been invaded in the first place.
Third, how the hell is it still possible that there are people who believe anything coming out of Russia? They have lied so much it's not even funny, why would you take their lies at face value? Why do you think they wouldn't have invaded anyways? What would have stopped them?
By that time Russia already invaded large chunks of Ukraine and their rhetoric "that country/nation should not exist at all" was pervasive. So any delusions of avoiding further escalation were just that, delusions. Germans have big blind spot toward Russia even today, Merkel had little chances to change it even if she wanted.
I don't remember the German government laughing, but they were certainly crossing their fingers (or holding their thumbs) that nothing would go wrong on their watch.
The lack of contingency planning is down to a mix of corruption, incompetence, and yes some naivete.
Urgh I am so tired of people using this to imply that Trump was a sort of visionary. Yes, he was right, just like the many US presidents and officials before him that had been saying it as well.
Just for the record, here is another quote from the man, including his own correction: "My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others saying they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it wouldn't be. [...] I have great confidence in my intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today".
This is common QAnon propaganda trying to legitimise Trump. Trump has not predicted anything as this was a widely known fact. Even Merkel herself was saying that Germany is too dependent on Russian energy (in 2014!) and that imposing sanctions will be difficult.
Germans knew that they are dependent and they consciously chose to keep it that way.
On top of praising invasion of Ukraine in first days, as brilliant strategic move by brilliant leader (what else, everything he likes is brilliant).
Man, I SO much wish for him to be a competent good moral leader, since is slowly inching towards next presidency. As European I don't care if he is republican or democrat at all. Just from that position of extreme power don't make the world a worse place long term for everybody apart form Americans. We all share this tiny planet, what goes around comes around eventually.
But there are very few proofs of that, even completely ignoring his twitter brainfarts (which is relatively easy since I dont do twitter, but it leaked into all other news). No reason to expect he will be anyhow different from last time, only more senile/petty. And he was very petty and childish last time. If I had an acquaintance like him around me, I would detest and avoid him simply due to him being a proper a-hole.
But its entirely possible that he was good at realpolitik (ie repeatedly praising MBS and Putin since they held a lot of power, yet criticizing chinese as clear competition to US). Its just not very visible outside qanon and similar nutcase ultra right movements which filter media very selectively.
He was the only major politician pushing for the one thing that would have hurt Russia the most - European energy independence. I’m not sure how people can see how he consistently pushed for real containment of Russia then ignore it to believe he was BFF’s with Putin.
What sort of bullshit is this? Only major politician pushing for European energy independence? You cannot possibly be serious.
This has been talked about, promised on, strategised all across Europe. It's a matter of national policy in countries such as France and Poland, and was always a major talking point in nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar, wind projects.
Question: why are you sharing the thread of reddit comments on an hackernews thread, with a negative twist that people are "coping", or "coming up with excuses to deal with how bad this is going to be bro"?
>Question: why are you sharing the thread of reddit comments on an hackernews thread, with a negative twist that people are "coping", or "coming up with excuses to deal with how bad this is going to be bro"?
Short answer: Why not?
Longer answer: Because the discussion in that Reddit post is exactly what the title of the Fortune article is addressing.
>Longer answer: Because the discussion in that Reddit post are exactly what the title of the Fortune article is addressing.
Got it, you're saying is that your interpretation of the comments (they are "copium") matches the spin this article is trying to give to a given narrative, and you tried bring it here.
As an european here it is almost my obligation to remind every european of why we talk about the energy crisis (which is a fact, of course) and we never talk about the causes and who decided that we should support one side or the other.
I am against all this 4-bureaucrats-decide whether we enter a war or not, with the devastating consequences for energy and the nuclear risk at which they could potentially involve us in.
The opinions about who is bad or good in this war, I do not care. I do not support wars or war involvement. Diplomacy. When you cannot with diplomacy and it is not really your duty, just stay away.
The sanctions had extremely high public support. And not just passive support, byt pretty activen public demand; e.g. it seemed pretty obvious at the time that the German government was doing everything they could to avoid sanctions that could in any way impact the energy trade but the public uproar forced their hand. Just go and check the opinion polling from the time; it'll be like 80% in favor of full economic sanctions, while other survey questions make it clear that the respondents also know it will cause increases in energy prices. Here's a couple of examples to get started, but I'm sure you'll want to do your own research instead: [0] [1]
And sure, there's variation by geography / proximity to russia. But it's nowhere near as strong an effect as you claim.
If Russia comes knocking at your neighbour(ing country)'s doors, wouldn't you want to help them defend? Lest they come knocking on your door shortly after?
Many people in West seem to be unable to grasp how awful it is to have a barbaric invader. And what they do even if you bend over and give up with no resistance because no war.
For the defending side, in most cases war is the lesser evil compared to giving up. Aside from standout examples in like Denmark in WW2. But that is extremely early occurrences.
> For the defending side, in most cases war is the lesser evil compared to giving up
You should ask this to every ukranian that goes to die there instead of talking in their name and that just want to leave in peace instead of being locked down in their country to fight, meaning their life is in the hands of others that force them to go to the war to kill each other.
This is exactly what I am demanding from EU: do not decide in my name things that block trade, create energy scarcity and on top of that I have to finance. If someone is willing to fight this cause, of course the european bureaucrats the first ones, go fight in the war, but do not involve the rest of us. If some day they come to my door I will decide on that basis. It seems there are a lot of excuses to get into a war that is over 5000 km away from my country. By this measure we should all fighting each other all the time almost.
I do not like to be involved into a nuclear risk being at the opposite side of Europe. This is all absurd, no matter the rest of the arguments that are made about how bad or good Putin or Ukraine are.
They decide and we pay. Good arrangement! If these people had to pay with their personal wealth do you think they would do it? They would run away god knows where to hide god knows how much money from favors and a ton of things we might not know. A politician is probably the kind of person I trust the least. I am not talking about specifics. I say the profession. Most are bad.
I should have asked all those Ukrainian workers rushing back home in February to defend their homeland. But they seemed on a rush so I didn't bother them with stupid questions.
„Living in peace“ in this case means running away some 5000km. When Russians come, living in peace doesn't work. And the initial plan was to go much further than Ukraine... Just check out the Putin's ultimatum to NATO to retreat to 1997 borders.
> This is exactly what I am demanding from EU
And I'm demanding the opposite. What are we going to do?
> It seems there are a lot of excuses to get into a war that is over 5000 km away from my country
Well, in my case we have border with old good Russia and some actions is going on 30km from my whereabouts. Maybe eastern european union, focusing on our realities, doesn't sound that laughable, huh? Because people 5000km away certainly don't understand a thing about stuff over here. Just like we probably don't get your problems.
> I do not like to be involved into a nuclear risk being at the opposite side of Europe. This is all absurd, no matter the rest of the arguments that are made about how bad or good Putin or Ukraine are.
You're involved wether you like it or not. Such is life beyond „end of history“. Just like it was for centuries. Non-involvement is just bending over for whatever comes. And when it's Russians coming, it ain't pretty...
> They decide and we pay. Good arrangement! If these people had to pay with their personal wealth do you think they would do it?
Putin and his gang are gamblers. They certainly risk their personal wealth/power/lifes. But the possible prize is too damn big to resist. And they ain't West-style politicians caring about pockets. They already have so much money their grandchildren won't be able to spend. They want old good power. And pages in history books.
My point is not that you are right or wrong. My point is that both kind of russians and ukranian exist that agree/disagree with other people's choices and they have to put their life in danger because someone else decided for them. Look how people are running away from Russia right now to not get recruited.
I fiercely oppose to choices from others and consequences for a third one. If someone finds very important for their country, for their freedom or for whatever, no matter russian, ukranian or spanish, go get a weapon and contribute to the war. Do not count on me, but if someone wants to do it and puts their words where they put their choices, that is ok.
Choosing for others, no, no and no. Never, ever. Over my dead body I would let someone send one of my relatives to a war because someone decided what is important or not for someone else.
Well, for Ukrainians it's pretty simple. When you're attacked, you defend. And usually it's not your choice that you got attacked....
As for Russians, it's not „Putin's war“. Russians got what they wanted for a long time. Many of those who are running today were happy with the war till it came banging at their door. Look at Russian history of the past 300 years. Many people over here do believe Russia is the exceptional saviour of whatever. Just look at ecstasy over annexing Crimea. Even opposition had to play along because saying anything against it would not be accepted by society at large.
Some Russians saw writing on the wall since 2008 or even earlier. Many left after 2014. The most optimist ones stuck till spring of this year... But there's no large enough mass of people to do anything and overthrow the regime :D
> no matter russian, ukranian or spanish, go get a weapon and contribute to the war
Ukrainians ain't „contributing to the war“. They're defending their home.
> Choosing for others, no, no and no. Never, ever. Over my dead body I would let someone send one of my relatives to a war because someone decided what is important or not for someone else.
Ultimately such is life. Going to war feels more personal, but others are guiding your life every day. And human societies built out precisely because of this group work. Individually, humans can't do much. Wether against nature or other humans who do organise. And neither other humans, nor nature doesn't care about your feelings.
But the bigger problem is when others' inaction prevents those who do want to intervene. Coming back to East vs West in europe. West was calling us „Rusophobes“ for years. Well, it turns out West was „Russophiles“ instead. Yet old line still holds and West seem to be holding East on a leash to not do too much against Russia. Because muh contributing to war... :( In other words, making choices for others.
> Lest they come knocking on your door shortly after?
This makes it looks like there is a real risk of Russia invading Germany or any other European country, while they are having difficulties already achieving their goals in Ukraine.
In doing that you are also ignoring all the historical factors that contributed to that current situation, which are very specific to Ukraine and go back several decades, and buying into the US propaganda that Putin just went crazy and wants to conquer the whole of Europe for imperialistic goals.
You are completely incorrect. Russians waged a very similar war in 1956 in Hungary, for exactly same reasons. They killed everybody they wanted, installed very oppressive regime that stayed there for 30+ years. They also invaded my home country of (back then) Czechoslovakia, killed hundreds, and occupied for decades. Oppression, restrictions of basic freedoms, economy down the drain, basic things missing in shops. 200k soviet russian troops to shoot everybody if they decide to ever again think about this pesky democracy and freedom.
Europe doesnt begin with Germany on the east, in fact russia is biggest european country based on land size. Ukraine, baltic states, V4 states, Romania, Bulgary, Finland etc would all be under direct threat because whatever made up reasons or twisted history (for some pretty hilarious reasons they chosen "nazis" ignoring the fact that in Russia neonazis are by far the biggest group in whole Europe, and do get quiet support from state itself).
There is no limit to russian apetite. The idea that if Ukraine would fell in few days they would stop forever and just be happy with achievement is dangerously naïve. Currently its a state run by mobsters who understand only mobster logic - power, rule of stronger and deterrence. If they could have whole Europe, why not? Obviously they can't seeing how ineffective their army is, but the apetite of big egos is endless
You are conflating Russia with the USSR. But besides that, how do you reconcile the fact that Russia is having difficulties defeating Ukraine but yet it would be a meaningful threat not to just one but to 10 or more states (baltic states, V4 states, Romania, Bulgary, Finland etc) which are also NATO members?
So why should I buy into the narrative that they are gonna be able/it's their intention to invade all the Baltic states, Poland, Romania etc... which are also NATO members?
As a child, I left my country after a revolution, when it was clear people of my type were going to have a very bad time. That's one option. Let me tell you though, it's not a great option. Not having a country _sucks_, and I only realised how badly I had been disadvantaged my entire life once I grew up.
Staying is also an option, but then you either have the aforementioned "very bad time", or you fight (and almost definitely die).
Which shit-sandwich would you like? They all taste like shit, and you have to eat one.
There is no diplomatic solution to a bullet to the head. In case it wasn't clear, by "very bad time", I'm talking about torture and murder.
>I am against all this 4-bureaucrats-decide whether we enter a war or not, with the devastating consequences for energy and the nuclear risk at which they could potentially involve us in.
You seem to have a short memory when the invasion began and there was an uproar on plenty of major cities all over Europe - and we've seen no counter protests at the same time. So, clearly, it wasn't 4 bureaucrats.
Look, sorry to be so bold on this comment, but if you want to fight, involve yourself, you can enlist yourself and go there, no matter the side you choose. Some of us do not want to be in risk because of the decisions of others.
I think it is a very reasonable approach. By that measure we have to go to all wars where there is some cause to fight for wherever they happen. That just feeds violence and strengthens states and reduces freedom (bc there are excuses to put all kind of restrictions depending on how bad the situation they created gets), something I am not very keen on.
I know I will get negatives for saying this, but it is just my honest opinion. You want something, you work for it. Want war? Go to war, want peace? Be peaceful and diplomatic in the first place unless 100% self-defense is the only option. It is not fair to involve everyone else, less when the consequences can be seen already in the energy side. I hope it does not get worse with any nuclear stuff (I really think it will not happen) but this is unnecessary.
Had Ukraine fell in spring, my country was a likely next candidate. By helping Ukraine, we’re defending ourselves.
The question is if you as a society want to be seen as a legitimate partner. After the war, Eastern Europe will have many questions to certain West countries. If you want to stick to no-war-above-all, then many countries won’t be able to trust you. What is an ally worth if you know he will bail at first sign of trouble?
Personally I hope West societies will take a very good long look in the mirror. Or here in the East we will need a new Union.
Let's be honest here. Nobody is gonna put hundreds of millions of western European & American lives at risk to save 10 million of Eastern Europeans. The combined population of the three Baltic states is even less than 10mil.
The idea of an Eastern Europe Union is laughable. Life in the post soviet countries has been getting better thanks to the EU. Had they not joined the EU they would still be poor countries like Moldova or Albania.
10 million? Ex-warsaw pact sans Russia is closer to 100 million depending on definition. This notion that West doesn't care about us is exactly why Eastern European Union is not laughable. It's pretty hard stick with „allies“ that you know will backstab you at first opportunity. Well, already backstabbed with Nordstream I/II. Energy „liberalisation“ with fancy pricing scheme is a good one too. But at least here West stabbed themselves as well.
Life improvements is not thanks to EU. It was already improving fast before EU membership. It's just returning to normal state before soviet era. Moldova have other issues (Padniestre/Transnistria). Albania was much worse in pre-1990 too, so naturally it will take longer to catch up.
A I'd even say that EU membership slowed it down. We're curbed by same regulations that is forcing West industry to Asia. Local businesses are acquired by West companies before they develop R&D to compete with West. And we can't safeguard our markets to give breathing space to local companies. On top of that, a lot of EU money were pocketed.
After membership fees, money syphoned away by corrupt politicians, EU money flowing back to West because we can't guard local companies etc, I don't think EU is beneficial to East. IMO we'd be better off had whole ex-Warsaw-pact stayed away from EU for couple decades. NATO is damn nice though.